Saturday, 27 February 2016

Today
in this digital disruption, marketplace is in a state of rapid change. Competition
is coming from every direction. Design Thinking has gained influence where many
renowned brands are embracing it for survival, and providing value to
customers.

Design
thinking is a process, applicable to all walks of life of creating new and
innovative ideas and solving problems. It is not limited to a specific industry
or area of expertise.

Design
thinking places you in your customers’ shoes and asks you to see the world from
their perspective.It
is an essential tool for the Customer Experience Manager because it imagines
the life of the customer and the way she encounters your organization.

The
customer drives the current and future state of any business. Products and
services, whether they are delivered to internal or external customers, must
create fundamental value and address specific business needs. This cannot be
done unless the customer is an integral part of the entire product life-cycle, not
an afterthought.

Typically
Design Thinking process can be covered in 7 stages:

Define - What
is the problem you are trying to resolve, determine the success factors, who
are the users

Research - Review the history of the problem, collect
examples of other attempts to solve the same issue

Ideation - Generate as many ideas as
possible to serve these identified needs via brainstorming session, do not
judge ideas but encourage creativity

Prototype -Combine, expand, and refine ideas, present a selection
of ideas to the clients, do role plays

Choose – select powerful idea but
remember most practical solution may not be the best.

Implement – Plan, Do, Act, Check while
implementing

Learn – what works and what does not,
get customer feedback, measure success & discuss improvement

Sunday, 21 February 2016

One of them are Drones, typically known as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). They are expected to grow into a multibillion-dollar industry.

Drones have up until now been mostly confined to the military but are now being used more and more in civilian roles that go far beyond simple military use.

They are light, adjustable and easy to operate and often bring better results than traditional means of helicopters, light aircraft and satellites.

Drones are tools for collecting information, which is why big players in the digital economy like Amazon, Google and Facebook are so interested in them

Here are several uses of Drones to name a few:

Amazon Prime Air will fly individual packages out to customers within 30 minutes of ordering.

For real-time news, drones can be used to record the footage of a shootout in a bad neighborhood or nature’s fury of flood, earthquakes or wildfire outbreaks without risking the human lives.

Farmers have a tough job, butdrones can make it easier: they're a great way to do aerial surveys of crops or spraying the pesticides. This way, farmers can see if their irrigation systems are working, how their plants are growing, even see if any of the plants are sick by using infrared technology.

In the real estate industry, it's becoming increasingly common for property listings to be accompanied by a drone tour so residents can choose where to live.

Insurance companies are using them in claims settlements to assess the home roof damages.

Domino’s has tested pizza delivery with DomiCopter to help their boys avoid rushing through traffic.

Drones are great for sports or any big event with interesting activities going on that look even more interesting when viewed from above.

Police departments across the country are buying drones that they can use for surveillance and related activity and apply BigData Analytics to predict crime.

Hollywood movies like Skyfall & Harry Potter had used drones for shooting stunts.

Human couriers could very well be replaced by their robotic counterparts the day drones go mainstream.

It is not the technology but the regulations from aviation authorities that will be a major barrier and it will be a while before drones are allowed out to do their own thing.

Saturday, 13 February 2016

Today almost every new business wants a mobile version of
their website.

But are you going to have one design for the iPhone, another for
android or Windows mobiles and also for the iPad and Kindle?

With Digital Transformation at its peak, the number of
devices, platforms, and browsers that need to work with your site are growing.

Responsive
Web Design (RWD) is an approach, whereby a designer creates a Web page that
“responds to” or resizes itself depending on the type of device it is being
seen through. That could be a 17-inch desktop monitor, a 15-inch laptop, a 10
or 7-inch tablet, or a 4-inch smartphone screen.

RWD represents a fundamental shift in how we’ll build
websites for the decade to come.

As the user switches from their
laptop to iPad, the website will automatically switch to accommodate for screen
resolution, content orientations as landscape, portrait or square and automatic image adjustments. You don’t have
to double tap, pinch or zoom when device is changed.

RWD uses cascading style sheets (CSS) and HTML to resize,
hide, shrink, enlarge, or move the content, to make it look good on any screen.

In recent years, the internet has
experienced a drastic rise in mobile website traffic. Browser-equipped phones
will outnumber traditional computers at some point. Touchscreens are becoming
increasingly popular. Right now touchscreens are mainly on
smaller devices, but many laptops and desktops on the market also have
touchscreen capability.

Design considering mouse scrolling for
desktops as well touch screen swiping for mobiles.

Consider fingers of all shapes &
sizes for touch.

It should be compatible with iOS,
Android, Windows or BlackBerry.

Optimize the site for peak
performance to load quickly regardless of device.

Finally test your design on actual
devices.

Here are few great examples of RWD:

Boston Globe covering news about Sports, business & Tech, Politics etc. Simply
go to the site and re-size your browser window: the website will automatically
adjust to the current width of your browser.

Big data
Analytics: Till date insurers were struggling to collect the data from so many
different systems. But with digital transformation, they can mine existing
internal data and combine it with valuable alternate data sources like social
media & health data to help gain 360 degree view of customers. This will
help engage customers as individuals and offer them personalized tailored
experience.

Customer first
approach: Traditionally insurers interact with customers only when they buy a
policy, pay the premium or file a claim which is periodic in nature, compared to banking
or retail business. With customer first approach, insurers can go closer to
customers and grow loyalty.